LETTER: USA goes for $2 billion

No doubt people will decry the fact that over $2 billion was been spent on political ads. It is commonly assumed that this will have greatly influenced who will have lost and won (though about 150 million of those eligible -- about 40 percent -- did not vote at all; were they discouraged or somehow not reached?).

Most of this money has come from a very few sources. In fact, as it turns out, some donors could have paid for both sides. As disgusting as this may be, it gives us a good idea of how much the U.S.A. is worth.

Advertisement

Not America, for that is an idea. The U.S.A. is a political creature with an elected president, Congress and Senate, and various lower elected offices like judgeships and such.

This is the first year the Supreme Court ruling Citizens United or "money is speech'' has been tried. But elections big and small have always run on money, and money and the people it comes from often win the day. When this happens often enough, it becomes inevitable and only money can run against money. "Where's the money, and how do I get it?", becomes the main preoccupation of most politicians.

What do you get for $2 billion? First, a really great Army and Navy. (You have to win an election, or these guys won't do what you say.) Win or buy one and they will kill or die for you.

You get lots of nice national parks and other real estate, and the power to get more through eminent domain and taxes. Yeah, and the power to tax. That's another reason to win an election.

So you see, $2 billion is chump-change ... pennies on the dollar, really for what you get. One man, 64 million votes. Having won the presidency, one may then buy upgrades such as the Congress and Senate, judgeships and state ballot propositions. When someone says he would turn a federally controlled issue "back for the states to decide,'' he is saying, ''put it up for sale.''

Before the Supreme Court ruling, both Hawaii and California had gay marriage propositions on their recent state ballots. The local voting was gradually moved to defeat these "props'" by wave after wave of out of state money -- millions to one, mostly from Mormons in Utah. On this issue, one state now controls the internal governance of another. If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it.

Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, for instance, an anti-fracking state "prop" could defeated by oil money, suffocating New Yorkers in pro-fracking ads. Or elected judges could rule on the constitutionality of anti-fracking laws and overturn them, after having been elected with a flood of oil company financed ads. And we wouldn't know about it. I'm just sayin'.

The U.S.A. is not for sale. But we have once again been bought, and the price was $2 billion.